In recent years, using wood has been increasingly recognised as a global solution to climate change, which has seen significant shifts in the Australian forestry sector.
A recent report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation found using timber and wood-based materials in place of non-renewable materials like concrete, metal, brick and plastic could lead to a significant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
This type of recognition could be the catalyst for such game changers, as the development of Tasmania’s timber first policy and the National construction code changes which opened the way for timber buildings up to 8 storeys. Effectively these changes are creating new markets for timber construction.
Planet Arks, Make it Wood campaign further highlights the role timber construction and certification systems have to play.
“When sourced responsibly, wood can play a big part in helping tackle climate change by storing carbon and through reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.”
Planet Ark defines responsible sourcing as ‘independent certification’ acknowledging it to be ‘the best means of demonstrating that wood is sourced from well-managed forests and ensuring the best environmental outcomes’, with a preference for the rigorous FSC certification.
Equally, the preference for responsible forest management is reflected in Australia’s forest investment. Recent research conducted by FSC Australia saw timber investment achieve an average annual growth of 10% plus a significant preference for sustainable timberland. The choice for responsibly managed sourcing is represented in FSC Australia’s recent assessment into forestry procurement of the top listed ASX companies which showed over half* of the top companies included FSC certification as a consideration when procuring wood fibre products.
The FSC Forest Management Standard, certifies responsibly managed forests both big and small, both international and local, essentially any forest that can meet the rigorous standard based on the 10 principles. Currently, FSC Australia and stakeholders are in fact developing the National Forest Management Standard for the Australian context.
However, in Australia at this stage only 12% of native and plantation production forests are FSC certified, in contrast to New Zealand where 72% of production forests are FSC certified. The vast majority of the area certified in Australia is plantation forests with only small areas of native forest certified to FSC’s high standards. Whilst this limits the availability of Australian grown hardwood timbers carrying the FSC label, most hardware stores and timber merchants carry FSC certified softwoods.
The FSC system does provide a high level of transparency on forest managers with its public database that traces which certified forest managers are certified to grow what timber species, accessed online here. FSC as a certification label does not endorse forest activities but does support any forest manager who has meet the rigorous forest management standard. We hope to see a rise in forest management certificates in Australia through the continued partnership FSC provides between forest managers, environmentalists, indigenous groups, retailers and consumers.
*6 out of 10 of the top 10 listed ASX companies included FSC in a procurement policy. 15% of the top 100 overall included FSC in a procurement policy.